Why? Because some 70 vendors will be selling about 25,000 cupcakes during the event.

Flavors will run the gamut, from gourmet blends that fuse chocolate with everything from bacon and banana to pretzels and creams, to build-your-own cupcakes with toppings galore, and one that is even batter-dipped and deep fried.

“This has turned into a monster,” said festival co-founder Patrick McKeon, promotions director at radio station K104.7 who built what started out as an on-air bit with “Woodman in the Morning” into the event it is today seven years ago, along with Sam Favata, K104.7’s marketing, digital and event director.

“It’s a lot of hard work with this festival, but once you get it going it almost runs itself, and you stand there and are in awe to see so many people eating cupcakes, and breaking their diets,” he said.

These diminutive sweets will take over the streets in Beacon for four hours as participants cruise the offerings to satiate some anticipated 15,000 sets of sweet teeth.

“Eventually we came into Beacon and it just exploded,” McKeon said, noting this is the second year the city has hosted the event, which started in Newburgh and then took over Fishkill, block by block, before landing in Beacon.

McKeon said last year they were expecting 5,000-7,000 people, but as the day progressed, he estimated some 15,000 attendees had ambled along the city’s blocked-off Main Street, enjoying the day on a sugar high.

'Cupcake Wars' winner to be crowned

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A Oreo cupcake from Forget Me Not Cupcakes on April 18, 2018.(Photo: Patrick Oehler/Poughkeepsie Journal)

For the more competitive bakers, the day will culminate with the crowning of the winner of the “Cupcake Wars,” a competition the radio station hosts for seven weeks prior to the festival, where entries are winnowed down by judges leading up to the event. The baker of the tastiest treat will walk away with a $1,000 prize.

But you don’t have to have a competitive streak to participate in the festival — any baker can become a vendor and not all participate in the culinary “wars.”

So who are these folks who bake into the wee hours of the morning, making thousands of cupcakes and pound after pound of fillings and frostings?

Here is a sampling of participants in this year’s festival – enough to whet your appetite for something sweet.

Forget Me Not Cupcakes bringing 2,000 cupcakes to the festival

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Pat Roza of Forget Me Not Cupcakes inside her cupcake bus parked in the City of Poughkeepsie on April 18, 2018. (Photo: Patrick Oehler/Poughkeepsie Journal)

Pat Roza of Forget Me Not Cupcakes in Milton won the Cupcake Wars in 2013 and has been judging the event for the past three years. Once you win the cupcake crown, you are ineligible to compete again.

In fact, that $1,000 prize helped her to bake up a storm — a storm of cupcakes, that is.

“It’s a great way to bring the community together,” she said about the festival, “and a great way to try to win $1,000 — that is what helped me get started in the business.”

She’s in the process of preparing 2,000 cupcakes for the festival.

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Pat Roza of Forget Me Not Cupcakes outside her cupcake bus parked in the City of Poughkeepsie on April 18, 2018. (Photo: Patrick Oehler/Poughkeepsie Journal)

“Considering I sold 1,000 in two and half hours the past two years, I definitely have to make more,” Roza said.

She will bring some of her most popular flavors to the fest, such as Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Reese's Peanut Butter, Lemon Blueberry and Lemon Raspberry.

And because the festival falls on Cinco de Mayo this year, she will make a Strawberry Margarita cupcake for the occasion.

“I just might put some tequila in it, which burns off during cooking and just leaves the flavor,” she said.

Baking runs in the genes for Roza.

“I come from a long line of bakers,” she said. “My mom won the Pillsbury Bake-Off at the Dutchess County Fair when she was 90 for her strawberry-rhubarb pie. She grew the rhubarb in the backyard. And my sister. We all are bakers; we learned from Mom.”

Roza will arrive in her cupcake truck, which features a cupcake logo with angel wings. Each cupcake she bakes is inspired by a loved one she lost — her son, Christopher Joseph Usifer, who died at the age of 22 in 2007 of complications from drug abuse.

“I needed to find a way to help others,” Roza said. “I donate 10 percent from the sales in his memory to C.A.P.E. (Council on Addiction Prevention and Education). I have helped so many people in the last 10 years.”

Lovin' From the Oven serves cupcakes with beer

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A lemon blueberry cupcake from Lovin from the Oven Gourmet Cupcakes in Wappingers Falls on Friday, April 20, 2018. (Photo: Patrick Oehler/Poughkeepsie Journal)

Jody Lydic launched her cupcake business, Lovin From the Oven, at last year’s festival.

“It was a perfect opportunity to do it,” said the Wappingers Falls resident who moved to New York five years ago from Washington County, Pennsylvania, where she had baked for family and friends, posting her cupcake flavor of the week on Facebook.

Now she sells her tempting treats at Cousins Ale Works in Wappingers, featuring the brewery’s local stout in her Chocolate Stout Cupcake.

Jody Lydic, owner of Lovin from the Oven Gourmet Cupcakes in her kitchen in Wappingers Falls on Friday, April 20, 2018. (Photo: Patrick Oehler/Poughkeepsie Jour)

She will be baking about 1,000 cupcakes for the festival, including Death by Chocolate, Turtle, Cookies 'n’ Cream and Blushing Bride, a white almond cupcake with raspberry filling and a cheesecake-cream frosting.

And if those flavors don’t entice, you can build your own at her booth at the festival.

“What our draw is you can create your own gourmet cupcake,” she said. “I bring the cakes, the fillings, the frosting and the toppings, sprinkles and drizzle.”

Whipped Cupcakes is known for a cupcake that combines peanut butter, pretzel

Nicole Conklin of Whipped Cupcakes in Newburgh will be driving her vintage cupcake trailer to Beacon for the festival. This is her fourth year as a vendor, and she has participated in the Cupcake Wars for two years.

“It’s a great day,” she said about the festival, “What’s not to love? There are 20,000 cupcakes all on one street. It’s dessert heaven.”

Conklin got her first taste for baking sweets at her grandmother’s knee.

“When I was 12 years old my love for cupcakes developed,” she said. “I always said that one day I would have a cupcake company. And here it is in the Hudson Valley, the business. I’ve been doing it full time since 2013 and by 2018 I hope to have a storefront.”

Whipped Cupcakes will feature some six to eight flavors at the festival, she said, including the fan favorite, Chubby Hubby, a chocolate salted-caramel cupcake with peanut butter and pretzel combination.

Conklin concocted one cupcake she said sets her apart from others in the field. After all, there’s a lot of competition on the street with at least 20 other vendors, so what do you do that is different to stand out?

“We came up over the past two years with a deep fried cupcake … made to order and served hot and gooey,” she said.

The decadent treat starts with a filled, frosted cupcake that is dipped in batter and then deep fried.

Deep Fried Strawberry Shortcake Cupcake from Nicole Conklin of Whipped Cupcakes will be featured at the Cupcake Festival in Beacon.(Photo: Submitted)

“It’s the best of both worlds,” she said. “This year it will be the Deep Fried Strawberry Shortcake Cupcake — our vanilla bean cupcake with a fresh strawberry compote filling, all made from scratch, topped with a vanilla bean buttercream and the whole thing will be surrounded in funnel cake batter. We fry that made to order and then when it comes out, we top it hot with fresh strawberry puree and whipped cream.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how many people say it is flavorful, light and fluffy — you would think it would be heavy, but it’s not,” she said. “It’s crazy.”

The Cakery Fishkill started making cupcakes by accident

Ashley Russell is owner of The Cakery Fishkill, which will participate in the Cupcake Festival in Beacon.(Photo: Submitted)

This will be the fifth year Ashley Russell’s The Cakery Fishkill has participated in the Cupcake Festival.

“It’s a lot of hard work for me and my staff, but it’s really exhilarating to see how many people in the Hudson Valley show up to buy them,” she said. “Then, in a blink of an eye, it’s all gone.”

That’s about 1,800 cupcakes she’s planning on bringing to this year’s event.

“I got started by accident,” she said. “I started the business in my home in 2011, and it has grown tremendously since then. I found K104 (Cupcake Festival) in my third year doing business and the Cupcake Wars, which I’m hoping to win this year.”

Russell said she is holding a vote on Facebook for people to pick their favorite from a dozen flavors of cupcakes, such as Chocolate Bacon, Holy Cannoli, Nutella Explosion, Chocolate Caramel Pretzel, Hudson Valley Apple Pie, Carrot and Almond Joy.

“With ours, we say they are fully loaded — they have a filling, several toppings and look super indulgent for a little tiny cake,” Russell said.